Why Bush Will Nuke Iran

by Paul Craig Roberts

The neoconservative Bush administration will attack
Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, because it is the only way the neocons believe
they can rescue their goal of U.S. (and Israeli) hegemony in the Middle East.

The U.S. has lost the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Generals in both war
theaters are stating their need for more troops. But there are no troops to
send.

Bush has tried to pawn Afghanistan off on NATO, but Europe does not see any
point in sacrificing its blood and money for the sake of American hegemony.
The NATO troops in Afghanistan are experiencing substantial casualties from
a revived Taliban, and European governments are not enthralled over providing
cannon fodder for U.S. hegemony.

The "coalition of the willing" has evaporated. Indeed, it never existed.
Bush's "coalition" was assembled with bribes, threats, and intimidation.
Pervez Musharraf, the American puppet ruler of Pakistan, let the cat out of
the bag when he told CBS' 60 Minutes on Sept. 24, 2006, that Pakistan
had no choice about joining the "coalition." Brute coercion was applied.
Musharraf said Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Pakistani
intelligence director that "you are with us" or "be prepared
to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age." Armitage is trying
to deny his threat, but Dawn Wire Service, reporting from Islamabad on Sept.
16, 2001, on the pressure Bush was putting on Musharraf to facilitate the U.S.
attack on Afghanistan, stated: "'Pakistan has the option to live in the
21st century or the Stone Age' is roughly how U.S. officials are putting their
case."

That Musharraf would volunteer this information on American television is a
good indication that Bush has lost the war. Musharraf can no longer withstand
the anger he has created against himself by helping the U.S. slaughter his fellow
Muslims in Bush's attempt to exercise U.S. hegemony over the Muslim world. Bush
cannot protect Musharraf from the wrath of Pakistanis, and so Musharraf has
explained himself as having cooperated with Bush in order to prevent the U.S.
destruction of Pakistan: "One has to think and take actions in the interest
of the nation, and that's what I did." Nevertheless, he said, he refused
Bush's "ludicrous" demand that he arrest Pakistanis who publicly demonstrated
against the U.S.: "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression
of views."

Bush's defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's defeat by Hezbollah in
Lebanon have shown that the military firepower of the U.S. and Israeli armies,
though effective against massed Arab armies, cannot defeat guerillas and insurgencies.
The U.S. has battled in Iraq longer than it fought against Nazi Germany, and
the situation in Iraq is out of control. The Taliban have regained half of Afghanistan.
The king of Saudi Arabia has told Bush that the ground is shaking under his
feet as unrest over the American/Israeli violence against Muslims builds to
dangerous levels. Our Egyptian puppet sits atop 100 million Muslims who do not
think that Egypt should be a lackey of U.S. hegemony. The king of Jordan understands
that Israeli policy is to drive every Palestinian into Jordan.

Bush is incapable of recognizing his mistake. He can only escalate. Plans have
long been made to attack Iran. The problem is that Iran can respond in effective
ways to a conventional attack. Moreover, an American attack on another Muslim
country could result in turmoil and rebellion throughout the Middle East. This
is why the neocons have changed U.S. war doctrine to permit a nuclear strike
on Iran.

Neocons believe that a nuclear attack on Iran would have intimidating force
throughout the Middle East and beyond. Iran would not dare retaliate, neocons
believe, against U.S. ships, U.S. troops in Iraq, or use their missiles against
oil facilities in the Middle East.

Neocons have also concluded that a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran would show the
entire Muslim world that it is useless to resist America's will. Neocons say
that even the most fanatical terrorists would realize the hopelessness of resisting
U.S. hegemony. The vast multitude of Muslims would realize that they have no
recourse but to accept their fate.

Revised U.S. war doctrine concludes that tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons
cause relatively little "collateral damage" or civilian deaths, while
achieving a powerful intimidating effect on the enemy. The "fear factor"
disheartens the enemy and shortens the conflict.

University of California Professor Jorge
Hirsch, an authority on nuclear doctrine, believes that an American nuclear
attack on Iran will destroy the Nonproliferation Treaty and send countries in
pell-mell pursuit of nuclear weapons. We will see powerful nuclear alliances,
such as Russia/China, form against us. Japan could be so traumatized by an American
nuclear attack on Iran that it would mean the end of Japan's sycophantic relationship
to the U.S.

There can be little doubt that the aggressive U.S. use of nukes in pursuit
of hegemony would make America a pariah country, despised and distrusted by
every other country. Neocons believe that diplomacy is feeble and useless, but
that the unapologetic use of force brings forth cooperation in order to avoid
destruction.

Neoconservatives say that America is the new Rome, only more powerful than
Rome. Neoconservatives genuinely believe that no one can withstand the might
of the United States and that America can rule by force alone.

Hirsch believes that the U.S. military's opposition to the use of nuclear weapons
against Iran has been overcome by the civilian neocon authorities in the Bush
administration. Desperate to retrieve their drive toward hegemony from defeat
in Iraq, the neocons are betting on the immense attraction to the American public
of force plus success. It is possible that Bush will be blocked by Europe, Russia,
and China, but there is no visible American opposition to Bush legitimizing
the use of nuclear weapons at the behest of U.S. hegemony.

It is astounding that such dangerous fanatics have control of the U.S. government
and have no organized opposition in American politics.

Paul Craig Roberts
wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall
Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National
Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including
The
Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon
chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous
scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions.
He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award
and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal
of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell.

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